Heng Development Co. Ltd Cleared Villagers’ Land in Kandal

A villager representative, who asked for the condition of anonymity[Phan Vuthy, 42, married with 5 children] and lived in Prek Tathok village, Prek Sleng commune, Kandal Stoeung district, Kandal province, reported on the phone on April 2, 2010 that Heng Development Co. Ltd was grabbing villagers’ land by using tractors and bulldozers to clear their land. This has affected 842 families in 4 villages, including Prek Tathok, Pun Chay, Prek Sleng and Prasat village in Prek Sleng commune.

He said that the recent clearance took place on April 1-2, 2010 destroying villagers’ dry season rice from the location of Point 94-96 (The name has been called since Pol Pot regime) up to Canal 56-57, which is used as the location border line. On April 2, the company brought 6 machines- 3 tractors and 3 bulldozers resumed razing even though there was protest from around 200-300 villagers to stop their activity. The company did not listen to the villagers’ command; however, in addition around 12:30 PM there were about 20-30 military police arrived at the area with 2 AK47 to defend company’s project implementation and also to intimidate villagers not to demonstrate.

Related to the above conflict, he revealed that the 200 hectares of land has belonged to those 4 villages as “Solidarity Land” since the People’s Republic of Kampuchea; and the conflict has taken place since 2005, when Heng Development Co. Ltd first came to clear the land and asserted that the company had bought it from village and communal chief, but they said they did not received any single Riel from the company at all.

When the conflict primarily started those residents thumb-printed and lodged complaints with all levels of authority; village, communal, district and provincial, but their problems have never taken into account even though there was intervention from some lawmakers, Mr. Chan Cheng and Ou Chanrith.

The above act of the company totally violated the 2001 Land Law and villagers’ right to ownership or land right. The company should have informed or discussed the issue with them before implementing its project or clearing the area.

Article 5 of the law writes, “No person may be deprived of his ownership, unless it is in the public interest. An ownership deprivation shall be carried out in accordance with the forms and procedures provided by law and regulations and after the payment of fair and just compensation in advance.” In addition, the failure of those authorities of all levels also reflected the abuse of villagers’ right. On behalf of the government in a democratic country, they should have intervened their citizens or people whenever they had problems; especially such mentioned issues.